Tag Archives: recovery

Should You Tell Your Kid to Drop Out of High School?

Written by Steven Hansen There have been several posts over the past few weeks discussing college / university education. Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius stated: [T]he faster job growth among college graduates is entirely due to faster growth in the … Continue reading

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Initial Claims Not Great but Not as Bad as Claimed

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The media exhibited much consternation today as economists’ consensus guess on first time unemployment claims turned out to be way too optimistic this week. That raised two questions in my mind. Was the number … Continue reading

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April 2013 Leading Economic Index Forecasts Continuing Economic Expansion

Written by Steven Hansen The Conference Board Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the U.S. improved 0.6% in April to 95.0 (2004 = 100). Overall, the index value has been slowly trending up, and one month is not a trend. This … Continue reading

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Self-defeating Austerity Shocks

by Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov, Voxeu.org This article was originally published by Voxeu.org (May 3, 2013) Europe’s austerity-first approach has triggered research-based efforts to evaluate the effectiveness of debt-reduction strategies. This column, based on a US empirical study, suggests … Continue reading

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What Do Weekly Unemployment Claims Tell us About Recession Risk?

by Doug Short, Advisor Perspectives/dshort.com Note from dshort: I’ve updated this commentary to include the latest labor force data in May’s release of the April employment report. Every Thursday I post an update on weekly unemployment claims shortly after the … Continue reading

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Retail Sales Stronger than Expected in April 2013

Written by Steven Hansen Retail sales came in much stronger than anticipated. the unadjusted data was stronger than the seasonally adjusted data this month; the headline numbers show backward revisions were slightly upward; the weakness in the data was gasoline … Continue reading

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Investment and Consumption

by Michael Pettis, China Financial Markets I have been arguing for several years that once China begins the adjustment process, which I expect to characterize the ten-year period of the current administration, growth rates must slow significantly. My expectation for long-term growth … Continue reading

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US Consumers Keep Spending Despite Reduced Pay

by Warren Mosler This article was originally published by Mosler Economics (Apr. 29, 2013) This is the current thinking, but the pieces don’t add up? Hoping I’m being too negative here… Comments below:

Posted in Employment, Personal Income and Consumption, Prices - PPI, CPI and More, money | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Austerity and Growth Perspectives: Europe, the IMF, China, and the US

Written by Elliott Morss, Morss Global Finance Introduction Over the last two decades, the trade-offs between more rapid economic growth and the need for governments to keep their financial houses in order has been a topic of worldwide debate. Controversy … Continue reading

Posted in China, Economics, Eurozone, GDP, International Economic data | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

More Bad News On Dying US Manufacturing

More Bad News On Dying US Manufacturing- Excise Taxes Drop, But Markets Have Reason To Party On by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner [While US tax collections on everything went gangbusters in April, absolutely through the roof, there was one … Continue reading

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Payrolls Gain But QE Has No Impact On Growth Rate

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The BLS today reported a seasonally adjusted (SA) gain of 165,000 in April nonfarm payrolls, beating the consensus estimates of 140,000 to 155,000 from surveys of economists by mainstream media organizations. Surprise, surprise (not) … Continue reading

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Savings and Investment: Sorting Out Confusion Over Definitions

A Bit More on Savings and Investment by Steve Randy Waldman, Interfluidity.com Steve Roth (1, 2), Scott Sumner (1, 2, 3), Bill Woolsey, and Matt Yglesias have been debating questions of saving versus investment and paradoxen of thrift. See also … Continue reading

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Trickle Down Corporate Profits – NOT!

Written by Steven Hansen This week Personal Consumption data was released showing weak (but above expectations) growth.

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Second Quarter Stronger than Perceived

Here’s Why Everybody Is Wrong About The Second Quarter Being Weak by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner With the quarter now one third complete just about all the pundits are predicting a sharp slowdown in the economy for the April-June … Continue reading

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Terminal Velocity (6) Update – “Flying Blind, On Fumes, With No Pilot”

Written by Adam Whitehead, KeySignals.com In Terminal Velocity (4)[i], the possibility and conditions precedent for the “Helicopter” to land at Jackson Hole were discussed. The specific landing conditions were identified in Terminal Velocity (5). These conditions were observed as a … Continue reading

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GDP: Inventory Build Saves the Day

April 26, 2013 – BEA Estimates 1st Quarter 2013 GDP Growing at 2.5% Annual Rate by Rick Davis, Consumer Metrics Institute In their first estimate of the US GDP for the first quarter of 2013, the Bureau of Economic Analysis … Continue reading

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Does Unemployment Claims Data Indicate There Actually is Some Trickle Down?

Big Improvement in Unemployment Claims Suggests Fed Rigging May Be Trickling Out by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The trend toward fewer initial unemployment claims showed signs of accelerating this week. If that were to continue it would mean that … Continue reading

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Congress Considers Screwing Seniors

Written by Steven Hansen How many of the elderly live totally on social security benefits live better and better every year?  It seems that social security is designed as a declining real benefit program. Yet the CBO in Testimony on … Continue reading

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Making The Case Against Austerity

by Stephanie Kelton This article was originally published in New Economic Perspectives Neil Irwin at Wonkblog has a new post up:  The Deficit is Falling Fast. Can Washington Accept Victory? He quotes John Makin of the American Enterprise Institute, who says, … Continue reading

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It’s A Housing “Recovery” In Orwellian Terms – Here’s The Reality

by Lee Adler, Wall Street Examiner The Commerce Department  today reported really good March home sales  relative the the past 4 years of the housing depression. Media reports included only the seasonally adjusted annualized sales rate, which was 417,000 versus a consensus … Continue reading

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